JSalter PhD Final Thesis Submission.pdf - University of Guelph

Unlike Naomi’s wounds that continue to seep because she cannot yet speak, Mai
can begin her healing process because she has learned how to (metaphorically) speak,
that is express her trauma through non-verbal modes of communication. Odori
emphasizes that, through whatever form of creative engagement, storytelling offers the
survivor and her listener a means to interweave moments of the past into one’s present
narrative to work towards a reconciliation of the fractured ‘then and now’ of trauma.
CONSEQUENCES IN THE HERE AND AFTER OF TRAUMA
Both Tamayose’s and Kogawa’s novels illustrate the psychological consequences
of not wanting to ‘tell’ and not being able to ‘tell’ certain stories. While Basan’s character
questions whether her articulation of the past signifies madness or wisdom, we can read
Obasan’s silence, not only as a culturally informed behavioural response, but also
constitutive of her traumatic inability to articulate the past. For her, silence functions as a
means to preserve calmness, to best ensure collective survival, and while telling might
afford a release of ghosts, her life-long adherence to silencing the past ultimately denies
its articulation. Sadly, even at the end of her life, Obasan “has not learned to weep”
(Kogawa 269). In contrast, Basan, who also “had not cried in so many years,” is now
capable of revealing her emotions; her “[f]ilmy eyes once hazel, now bruised with years
of earthly sights, began to glisten” (Tamayose 247).
Tamayose’s novel ends with a positive representation of how the past and all its
“sorrows and happiness” can inform and guide present and future generations. Kogawa’s
novel, on the other hand, concludes with an overwhelming sense of ambiguity about how
to reconcile oneself with the past and its traumatic silences and telling. While Mai is
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